LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Fleetwood Mac frontman Lindsey Buckingham has finished work on his third solo album in six years, a project he expects to release in September and promote with a tour.
The album, "Seeds We Sow," will also be his first outside the Warner Bros. family. Buckingham told Reuters that he was unhappy with its handling of his solo projects, and he was now considering teaming up with a new label or going the DIY route with an independent promotion team.
Fleetwood Mac is also a free agent after more than 40 years at Warner Bros., Buckingham said. The Anglo-American rock icons last released an album in 2003 and were the ninth biggest touring act in 2009 with U.S. ticket sales of $55 million, according to Pollstar.
Buckingham, 61, said Fleetwood Mac will continue to tour and record. Given classic-rock audiences' disdain for hearing new music in concert, he said he enjoys the creative challenge of giving old favorites a new sheen on stage.
Despite a busy family life, Buckingham has also been on a creative tear in his solo career, releasing albums in 2006 and 2008, and touring to promote both of them. Before then, he had not released a solo album since 1992's "Out of the Cradle."
Coincidentally, he said "Seeds We Sow" will be similar in tone to "Out of the Cradle," which received a rapturous critical response but was a relatively poor seller.
ANOTHER STONES COVER
The title track opens the album. "I don't think anyone's gonna take that for a radio song because it's just voice and acoustic guitar and there's a lot of that on the record," he said. "It runs the gamut. There's some lead playing, there's a little bit of everything on there."
As he did on 2006's "Under the Skin," he covers an obscure Rolling Stones song, this time "She Smiled Sweetly" from the band's 1967 album "Between the Buttons." He previously reworked their 1966 tune "I Am Waiting."
Buckingham said he was a fan of the Stones' experimental recordings with original leader Brian Jones, an ill-fated virtuoso with whom he shares a musical versatility.
He recorded "Seeds We Sow" at his home studio in Los Angeles, playing most of the instruments and mixing it himself while fulfilling his obligations as the married father of three preteens.
While there is no theme to the album, his late-in-life domesticity inevitably means songs "get filtered through looking at the world a little differently, perhaps a little more philosophically."
Buckingham will take a break from laying the groundwork for the album when he appears at the annual ASCAP "I Create Music" Expo for musicians and songwriters in Hollywood on April 29. His Q&A with pop singer Sara Bareilles will follow the presentation of the performing rights group's Golden Note Award for career achievement.
"Maybe I'll take a guitar and a little amp and do a little picking on stage," he said.
But he warned attendees not to ask him technical questions related to publishing and licensing. And maybe not to tax him too much with tips for songwriting.
"I don't really think of myself so much as a writer as a stylist, someone who came into writing from the back door and has found it through a certain very specific and personal means. It's all about what you do with the style. Hopefully I'll have something good to say. We'll see."
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
Top Ten Guitar Solos by Eddie Van Halen
Friday, 15 April 2011
From KennerMcquaid.blogspot.com:
Eddie Van Halen was exactly what the rock ‘n roll doctor ordered to cure the Saturday Night Fever sweeping the nation during the late Seventies. When Van Halen was unleashed upon the unsuspecting masses in 1978, rock guitar playing was changed overnight. The threat that rock would become an afterthought in the face of a changing mainstream was temporarily thwarted. The only downside was the creation of a pool of guitar players who, throughout the Eighties, used Eddie’s techniques as tricks rather than as a natural method to create music. Even the incredibly gifted Randy Rhoads, who along with Ozzy Osbourne kept rock relevant despite the advent of disco and dance music, admitted that it pained him to incorporate Eddie Van Halen’s licks into his live solos just because ‘it impresses the kids.’
It’s nearly impossible to narrow down a list ten guitar solos by a rock legend with an extensive catalog of material. It’s naturally a subjective endeavor; the only advantage I claim is the insight provided by my 23 years of playing experience and countless hours spent fruitlessly trying to imitate The Master before giving up and establishing my own style.
Eddie took two approaches to soloing during his career. One was to try first, second, third (or even more) takes for solos on the studio albums. Later, he told Bud Scoppa during a lengthy interview for Guitar World prior to the release of OU812 that different takes would sometimes be spliced together to form one solo. “Sometimes I’ll do three solos,” said Van Halen, “and I’ll go, ‘I like the beginning of that one, I like the end of that one, I like the middle of that one.’ Whatever sounds good. Ain’t no fuckin’ rules. And I ain’t proud. I don’t give a fuck if it’s in one take or not. Whatever gets me off!”
I have no problem with the splicing method. After all, Eddie played all the solos himself. And nothing can hold-up the recording process like a guitar player who is anal retentive over his solos. It’s sometimes easy for a guitar player to tell when Eddie appeared to do something off-the-cuff, like on ‘Sinner’s Swing!’ Other times, it’s impossible to tell unless Eddie could recall himself during an interview. Like many guitar players, Eddie would often forget how to play some of his own songs after they would lie dormant for a while. He once admitted to having to go to a store to buy his own albums prior to a tour so that he could re-learn the material. He also admitted that he couldn’t play covers to save his life. What was a detriment in his early days, though, brought him great success when the band finally broke through, in large part, because Eddie Van Halen only knew how to be himself.
1. ‘Eruption’ (1978): Eddie Van Halen could have thrown his guitar into a dumpster after recording this one minute and forty-two seconds of guitar wizardry and still been a guitar hero for life. Though most well-known as the track on which Eddie unveiled his patented two-handed tapping technique to the world, to focus on that aspect alone is an oversimplification. Everything about the track- the tone, the use of the tremolo bar, the blinding speed and precision- set EVH apart from his late-Seventies contemporaries. The distortion coming out of the amplifiers makes the guitar work scream, which became known to guitar gurus as the infamous ‘brown sound.’ Although Eddie himself toyed with his amplifiers and guitars despite having no formal training in electronics, anyone who has studied guitar for a number of years knows that 99% of a guitarist’s tone comes from one thing and one thing alone: your own hands. (Eddie once relayed a story about how a suspicious Ted Nugent once plugged into Eddie’s rig before a show and, to Mr. Nugent’s surprise, he discovered that his tone still sounded exactly like Ted Nugent.) Eddie was never one who relied much on effects. This track was probably recorded with a classic MXR phase 90 pedal and an Echoplex for delay. The ultimate triumph of ‘Eruption,’ however, is simply how musical it sounds. Try grabbing an acoustic guitar and playing the blinding licks in the upper register down an octave at half speed- you’ll realize that Eddie wasn’t using his ability to play at unheard-of speeds to cover-up a lack of musical vocabulary.
2. ‘Beat It’ (1982): Eddie’s reputation was so well known even before the release of Van Halen’s 1984 that legendary producer Quincy Jones called upon him to provide a guitar solo for the opening track of what would become the best-selling album of all time worldwide, Michael Jackson’s Thriller. With the rhythm tracks already laid down by studio session veteran and Toto guitarist Steve Lukather, Eddie walked into the studio and winged two solos in front of The Gloved One himself. He estimated during an interview with Joe Bosso in the February 1990 issue of Guitar World that the entire project took 20 minutes. Ironically, it is this solo more than any other provides the best example of Eddie’s downright nasty distorted guitar tone. The artificial harmonics generated at 2:52- and at 3:06 especially- howl as if the amplifiers were possessed by demons. To an untrained ear, it sounds ‘cool.’ To the trained ear, there comes a realization that such tones are not possible in lesser hands during this time period- or even now. (An artificial harmonic is generated by shifting the pick attack to pinch the guitar string with the pick and thumbnail simultaneously, and they aren’t always easy to generate properly. Eddie’s use of them seems to be innate and is uncanny.) The use of wide intervals and two-handed tapping gives the solo a sense of urgency that the track demands. The ‘thank you’ letter that Quincy Jones wrote to Eddie afterward was signed, ‘The Fucking Asshole’ because Eddie began cursing at Jones during his initial phone call, thinking it was a prank because of a bad connection.
3. ‘Spanish Fly’ (1979): If anyone had attributed Eddie’s guitar pyrotechnics on the first album to studio effects rather than raw talent, these critics were silenced by this solo acoustic guitar track on Van Halen’s sophomore effort, Van Halen II. Eddie picks furiously and precisely on a much less forgiving instrument equipped with nylon strings, even providing a sample of his two-handed tapping technique established the prior year. (Eddie used to turn his back to the audience while playing clubs in L.A. to hide his experimentation with this form from other musicians.) Eddie explained the development of this track to Bud Scoppa in the July 1988 issue of Guitar World: “It’s sort of a funny thing how that happened. I think it was New Year’s Eve in ’78 or ’79. We were over at [producer] Ted Templeman’s house, Alex and I, and [Ted] had this acoustic guitar sittin’ in the corner. I started dickin’ around on it, y’know, I had half a heat going…[T]ed walks in and he goes, ‘Wow, you can play acoustic guitar?’ I looked at him like, ‘What’s the difference? It’s got six strings- it’s a fucking guitar!’ So I ended up coming up with ‘Spanish Fly’”
4. ‘Mean Street’ (1981): Fair Warning, the worst-selling album of the David Lee Roth era, contains some of Eddie Van Halen’s best guitar work. This opening track is a veritable textbook of Eddie’s tone, technique and approach to both soloing and riffing. The fade-in is a distorted take on a bass player’s slap and pop technique executed on guitar, before giving way to some quickly-executed hammer-on riffs and dive-bombed feedback that squeals from the speakers. The opening riff is the best example of Eddie’s ‘brown sound’ this side of ‘Panama.’ The solo goes by in a flash, but is highlighted with harmonics on the opening bend and musical use of the whammy bar that would simply come off as some bad-sounding tricks in the hands of imitators.
5. ‘Jump’ (1984): Though the phrase ‘in the pocket’ is overused, it is the best description for the guitar solo in this song. Only 18 seconds in length, Eddie begins by bending into a key change and exiting with a fast phrase on the return to the song’s original key. In between is a flurry of notes that are musical and memorable despite their speed. Eddie’s keyboard solo that follows sounds every bit as unique as his own guitar playing. Roth, with whom the tune is most associated, was initially against recording the song because he felt that no one wanted to hear Eddie Van Halen playing keyboards. The single reached #1 in the U.S. and Canada and was certified gold by the RIAA.
6. ‘Runnin’ With The Devil’ (1978): Eddie proves that less is more with his solo work on this track. With a strong sound, strong riff and strong vocals provided by Roth, there was no need for EVH to overdo it here. What matters is that Eddie made every note count, to the point that a person bordering on tone deafness could hum every note of both brief lead breaks.
7. ‘So Is This Love?’ (1981): The blues-based solo on the lead break, infected with a touch of EVH flair, is another example where playing less means more. It fits perfectly within the song, as does the lead during the outro.
8. ‘Mine All Mine’ (1988): A synth and keyboard-driven semi-rocker would seem like an odd place for Eddie to drop-in with a driving, screaming distorted solo, but he does just that. The solo begins with wailing whammy bar work before giving way to some downright melodic guitar riffage at 2:45.
9. ‘I’ll Wait’ (1984): Eddie’s solo on this synthesizer-based mid-tempo track brings a necessary bit of attitude to the song. Using what sounds to be a neck pick-up (although some of Eddie’s guitars weren’t even equipped with one), he bends and struts through the solo section to create a memorable lead break that relies on finesse rather than speed.
10. ‘Romeo Delight’ (1980): This outright rocker from Women and Children First contains a scorching, phased lead break that takes no prisoners, makes no apologies, and yet still manages to sound smooth.
BONUS TRACK: 11. ‘Judgment Day’ (1991): Eddie took his own two-handed tapping technique to a new level on this rocker from For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. Proving that he wanted to extend his rule from the Guitar Throne beyond the Eighties, Eddie employed a four-fingered attack on the strings that was first explored by Joe Satriani on his 1987 landmark guitar instrumental album, Surfing with the Alien. Eddie worked his way up the neck using two fingers from his fretting hand for two strings and two fingers from his pick hand to hammer-on to two additional strings- but, unlike Satriani, did it with a blazingly distorted tone from his amplifiers. (The risk with this technique at high volumes is that other strings and overtones will ring out sympathetically even if the technique is executed with precision.) Satriani explored a similarly challenging but different concept when he hammered-on arpeggios for ‘The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing’ with his fret hand while muting the open strings with his pick hand on his Flying in a Blue Dream release.
Honorable Mentions: ‘Girl Gone Bad,’ ‘Right Now,’ ‘When It’s Love,’ ‘Unchained,’ ‘Light Up the Sky,’ ‘A.F.U. (Naturally Wired),’ ‘Sinner’s Swing!’
Eddie Van Halen was exactly what the rock ‘n roll doctor ordered to cure the Saturday Night Fever sweeping the nation during the late Seventies. When Van Halen was unleashed upon the unsuspecting masses in 1978, rock guitar playing was changed overnight. The threat that rock would become an afterthought in the face of a changing mainstream was temporarily thwarted. The only downside was the creation of a pool of guitar players who, throughout the Eighties, used Eddie’s techniques as tricks rather than as a natural method to create music. Even the incredibly gifted Randy Rhoads, who along with Ozzy Osbourne kept rock relevant despite the advent of disco and dance music, admitted that it pained him to incorporate Eddie Van Halen’s licks into his live solos just because ‘it impresses the kids.’
It’s nearly impossible to narrow down a list ten guitar solos by a rock legend with an extensive catalog of material. It’s naturally a subjective endeavor; the only advantage I claim is the insight provided by my 23 years of playing experience and countless hours spent fruitlessly trying to imitate The Master before giving up and establishing my own style.
Eddie took two approaches to soloing during his career. One was to try first, second, third (or even more) takes for solos on the studio albums. Later, he told Bud Scoppa during a lengthy interview for Guitar World prior to the release of OU812 that different takes would sometimes be spliced together to form one solo. “Sometimes I’ll do three solos,” said Van Halen, “and I’ll go, ‘I like the beginning of that one, I like the end of that one, I like the middle of that one.’ Whatever sounds good. Ain’t no fuckin’ rules. And I ain’t proud. I don’t give a fuck if it’s in one take or not. Whatever gets me off!”
I have no problem with the splicing method. After all, Eddie played all the solos himself. And nothing can hold-up the recording process like a guitar player who is anal retentive over his solos. It’s sometimes easy for a guitar player to tell when Eddie appeared to do something off-the-cuff, like on ‘Sinner’s Swing!’ Other times, it’s impossible to tell unless Eddie could recall himself during an interview. Like many guitar players, Eddie would often forget how to play some of his own songs after they would lie dormant for a while. He once admitted to having to go to a store to buy his own albums prior to a tour so that he could re-learn the material. He also admitted that he couldn’t play covers to save his life. What was a detriment in his early days, though, brought him great success when the band finally broke through, in large part, because Eddie Van Halen only knew how to be himself.
1. ‘Eruption’ (1978): Eddie Van Halen could have thrown his guitar into a dumpster after recording this one minute and forty-two seconds of guitar wizardry and still been a guitar hero for life. Though most well-known as the track on which Eddie unveiled his patented two-handed tapping technique to the world, to focus on that aspect alone is an oversimplification. Everything about the track- the tone, the use of the tremolo bar, the blinding speed and precision- set EVH apart from his late-Seventies contemporaries. The distortion coming out of the amplifiers makes the guitar work scream, which became known to guitar gurus as the infamous ‘brown sound.’ Although Eddie himself toyed with his amplifiers and guitars despite having no formal training in electronics, anyone who has studied guitar for a number of years knows that 99% of a guitarist’s tone comes from one thing and one thing alone: your own hands. (Eddie once relayed a story about how a suspicious Ted Nugent once plugged into Eddie’s rig before a show and, to Mr. Nugent’s surprise, he discovered that his tone still sounded exactly like Ted Nugent.) Eddie was never one who relied much on effects. This track was probably recorded with a classic MXR phase 90 pedal and an Echoplex for delay. The ultimate triumph of ‘Eruption,’ however, is simply how musical it sounds. Try grabbing an acoustic guitar and playing the blinding licks in the upper register down an octave at half speed- you’ll realize that Eddie wasn’t using his ability to play at unheard-of speeds to cover-up a lack of musical vocabulary.
2. ‘Beat It’ (1982): Eddie’s reputation was so well known even before the release of Van Halen’s 1984 that legendary producer Quincy Jones called upon him to provide a guitar solo for the opening track of what would become the best-selling album of all time worldwide, Michael Jackson’s Thriller. With the rhythm tracks already laid down by studio session veteran and Toto guitarist Steve Lukather, Eddie walked into the studio and winged two solos in front of The Gloved One himself. He estimated during an interview with Joe Bosso in the February 1990 issue of Guitar World that the entire project took 20 minutes. Ironically, it is this solo more than any other provides the best example of Eddie’s downright nasty distorted guitar tone. The artificial harmonics generated at 2:52- and at 3:06 especially- howl as if the amplifiers were possessed by demons. To an untrained ear, it sounds ‘cool.’ To the trained ear, there comes a realization that such tones are not possible in lesser hands during this time period- or even now. (An artificial harmonic is generated by shifting the pick attack to pinch the guitar string with the pick and thumbnail simultaneously, and they aren’t always easy to generate properly. Eddie’s use of them seems to be innate and is uncanny.) The use of wide intervals and two-handed tapping gives the solo a sense of urgency that the track demands. The ‘thank you’ letter that Quincy Jones wrote to Eddie afterward was signed, ‘The Fucking Asshole’ because Eddie began cursing at Jones during his initial phone call, thinking it was a prank because of a bad connection.
3. ‘Spanish Fly’ (1979): If anyone had attributed Eddie’s guitar pyrotechnics on the first album to studio effects rather than raw talent, these critics were silenced by this solo acoustic guitar track on Van Halen’s sophomore effort, Van Halen II. Eddie picks furiously and precisely on a much less forgiving instrument equipped with nylon strings, even providing a sample of his two-handed tapping technique established the prior year. (Eddie used to turn his back to the audience while playing clubs in L.A. to hide his experimentation with this form from other musicians.) Eddie explained the development of this track to Bud Scoppa in the July 1988 issue of Guitar World: “It’s sort of a funny thing how that happened. I think it was New Year’s Eve in ’78 or ’79. We were over at [producer] Ted Templeman’s house, Alex and I, and [Ted] had this acoustic guitar sittin’ in the corner. I started dickin’ around on it, y’know, I had half a heat going…[T]ed walks in and he goes, ‘Wow, you can play acoustic guitar?’ I looked at him like, ‘What’s the difference? It’s got six strings- it’s a fucking guitar!’ So I ended up coming up with ‘Spanish Fly’”
4. ‘Mean Street’ (1981): Fair Warning, the worst-selling album of the David Lee Roth era, contains some of Eddie Van Halen’s best guitar work. This opening track is a veritable textbook of Eddie’s tone, technique and approach to both soloing and riffing. The fade-in is a distorted take on a bass player’s slap and pop technique executed on guitar, before giving way to some quickly-executed hammer-on riffs and dive-bombed feedback that squeals from the speakers. The opening riff is the best example of Eddie’s ‘brown sound’ this side of ‘Panama.’ The solo goes by in a flash, but is highlighted with harmonics on the opening bend and musical use of the whammy bar that would simply come off as some bad-sounding tricks in the hands of imitators.
5. ‘Jump’ (1984): Though the phrase ‘in the pocket’ is overused, it is the best description for the guitar solo in this song. Only 18 seconds in length, Eddie begins by bending into a key change and exiting with a fast phrase on the return to the song’s original key. In between is a flurry of notes that are musical and memorable despite their speed. Eddie’s keyboard solo that follows sounds every bit as unique as his own guitar playing. Roth, with whom the tune is most associated, was initially against recording the song because he felt that no one wanted to hear Eddie Van Halen playing keyboards. The single reached #1 in the U.S. and Canada and was certified gold by the RIAA.
6. ‘Runnin’ With The Devil’ (1978): Eddie proves that less is more with his solo work on this track. With a strong sound, strong riff and strong vocals provided by Roth, there was no need for EVH to overdo it here. What matters is that Eddie made every note count, to the point that a person bordering on tone deafness could hum every note of both brief lead breaks.
7. ‘So Is This Love?’ (1981): The blues-based solo on the lead break, infected with a touch of EVH flair, is another example where playing less means more. It fits perfectly within the song, as does the lead during the outro.
8. ‘Mine All Mine’ (1988): A synth and keyboard-driven semi-rocker would seem like an odd place for Eddie to drop-in with a driving, screaming distorted solo, but he does just that. The solo begins with wailing whammy bar work before giving way to some downright melodic guitar riffage at 2:45.
9. ‘I’ll Wait’ (1984): Eddie’s solo on this synthesizer-based mid-tempo track brings a necessary bit of attitude to the song. Using what sounds to be a neck pick-up (although some of Eddie’s guitars weren’t even equipped with one), he bends and struts through the solo section to create a memorable lead break that relies on finesse rather than speed.
10. ‘Romeo Delight’ (1980): This outright rocker from Women and Children First contains a scorching, phased lead break that takes no prisoners, makes no apologies, and yet still manages to sound smooth.
BONUS TRACK: 11. ‘Judgment Day’ (1991): Eddie took his own two-handed tapping technique to a new level on this rocker from For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. Proving that he wanted to extend his rule from the Guitar Throne beyond the Eighties, Eddie employed a four-fingered attack on the strings that was first explored by Joe Satriani on his 1987 landmark guitar instrumental album, Surfing with the Alien. Eddie worked his way up the neck using two fingers from his fretting hand for two strings and two fingers from his pick hand to hammer-on to two additional strings- but, unlike Satriani, did it with a blazingly distorted tone from his amplifiers. (The risk with this technique at high volumes is that other strings and overtones will ring out sympathetically even if the technique is executed with precision.) Satriani explored a similarly challenging but different concept when he hammered-on arpeggios for ‘The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing’ with his fret hand while muting the open strings with his pick hand on his Flying in a Blue Dream release.
Honorable Mentions: ‘Girl Gone Bad,’ ‘Right Now,’ ‘When It’s Love,’ ‘Unchained,’ ‘Light Up the Sky,’ ‘A.F.U. (Naturally Wired),’ ‘Sinner’s Swing!’
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Brian Grazer To Produce 24; Confirms 2012 Release
4/13/2011 6:25 PM ET
(RTTNews) - Brian Grazer has confirmed his production role for the forthcoming big-screen rendition of "24." Imagine Entertainment, the production company owned by Grazer and Ron Howard, produced the series when it aired on Fox from 2001 to 2010.
The "Frost/Nixon" producer recently hit Twitter to make the announcement: "Got off the phone Kiefer [Sutherland] yesterday and we are very excited about producing the 24 movie for next year." The 2012 release date had been previously announced by Sutherland during a guest appearance on "The View" last month. At that time, he described the film as "the little engine that could."
The series won several Emmy Awards, including a best actor win in 2006. However, the film version has been subject to several setbacks, such as script re-writes and scheduling difficulties.
by RTT Staff Writer
Charlie Sheen says he may be reunited with "Two and a Half Men."
Getty Images
In an interview with a Boston radio station Tuesday, Sheen said there have been discussions about bringing him back to the hit CBS sitcom he was fired from last month.
Sheen put the chances of him returning at "85 percent." He didn't offer details in the Sports Hub 98.5 WBZ-FM interview, saying he'd been asked not to divulge anything.
CBS declined to comment, and series producer Warner Bros. Television didn't immediately return a call for comment.
The actor also said his profits from the show's rich syndication deals are being withheld and that's part of his $100 million lawsuit against Warner and the show's executive producer.
Sheen was in Boston for his nationwide road show that has drawn mixed audience reaction.
Foo Fighters set to end Adele's run at the top of UK albums chart
Band on course to end Adele's 11 week reign at chart summit
The band's seventh album 'Wasting Light' is currently selling 50% faster than Adele's '21' in the midweek charts.
The latest compilation from Glee, 'Glee The Music: Volume 5' is presently at Number Three, while Katy B's 'On A Mission' is placed at Number Five.
In the singles chart, last week's Number Two 'Party Rock Anthem' from LMFAO is on course to top the chart, pushing Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull's 'On The Floor' down to Number Two.
Check NME this Sunday from 7pm (BST) for the full chart rundown.
Foo Fighters are on the cover of the new issue of NME, which is on UK newsstands or available digitally.
Photo: Dean Chalkley/NME
Foo Fighters are to set to end Adele's run of 11 weeks at the top of the album chart on Sunday (April 17). The band's seventh album 'Wasting Light' is currently selling 50% faster than Adele's '21' in the midweek charts.
The latest compilation from Glee, 'Glee The Music: Volume 5' is presently at Number Three, while Katy B's 'On A Mission' is placed at Number Five.
In the singles chart, last week's Number Two 'Party Rock Anthem' from LMFAO is on course to top the chart, pushing Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull's 'On The Floor' down to Number Two.
Check NME this Sunday from 7pm (BST) for the full chart rundown.
Foo Fighters are on the cover of the new issue of NME, which is on UK newsstands or available digitally.
BRET MICHAELS Announces Super Cruise!
"Can’t Guarantee The Weather, But I Can Guarantee You’ll Have The Time Of Your Life”
Rock Hard
Posted on Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 02:28:07 EST POISON frontman BRET MICHAELS
has announced the Bret Michaels Super Cruise, due to launch November 10th - 14th in Cozumel, Mexico. Complete details can be found at the event's official website, found here. Cabins can be booked now at this location.
Michaels: “I’ll be on board the entire time playing two full concerts. I’ll be bartending and most importantly hanging with the fans. Can’t guarantee the weather but I can guarantee you’ll have the time of your life.”
Check out the official facebook page and for Twitter updates.
South Bend Tribune's Tom Conway recently issued the following report:
Less than a year ago, Bret Michaels was rushed to the hospital, where doctors discovered the Poison singer had suffered a brain hemorrhage that nearly killed him.
"It was totally life-changing, as you might expect," Michaels says. "The doctors said, 'If you have children, you need to bring them down.' Those are words you never want to hear. It transcends scary. It's really the deepest, most wrenching kind of fear."
"When I got out of the hospital, I feel like a lot of people expected me to sit at home and wait for the sky to fall, and that's not me," he says. "If anything, the experience said to me, 'Life is short and life is fragile, so you better go live it.' ... Rock androll has been my life. It has truly been my savior. So for me, getting back on tour probably saved me, at least on a mental/spiritual level. If I sat around the house letting the world pass me by, my soul would have deteriorated. There would have been nothing left of me."
Michaels claims an accident at the 2009 Tony Awards show caused the brain hemorrhage. He declined comment on the lawsuit he filed last month against CBS and the show's producers.
"That's for the lawyers right now," he says. "It's pretty complicated and I'm not one to spill my legal life out to the world."
After his solo concert tour, Michaels will reunite with his Poison bandmates this summer for a co-headlining tour with fellow glam metal band MÖTLEY CRÜE. Poison - with more than 25 million albums sold worldwide and such hits as 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn' and 'Nothin' But A Good Time' - is celebrating 25 years in the music business this year. Michaels says it doesn't surprise him that they are still together.
"I think I did imagine a lifelong career with them," he says. "Life is about loyalty to me. You stick together. I'm still amazed by Poison and by what we've done together in our career so far. We turned nothing into something. And we never faked it."
Michaels says the members of Poison - C.C. DeVille, Bobby Dall and Rikki Rockett - don't have any plans to record any new music, but they are releasing a double CD retrospective of their greatest hits, Double Dose Of Poison: Ultimate Hits, next month.
"As far as writing all-new material, I'm not sure when that will happen," Michaels says. "But I'm sure that it will one day. I love writing music and I love those guys as though they're my brothers. When the time is right and the inspiration hits, I'm sure we'll all find ourselves back in the studio together."
Read the full report at this location.
Michaels: “I’ll be on board the entire time playing two full concerts. I’ll be bartending and most importantly hanging with the fans. Can’t guarantee the weather but I can guarantee you’ll have the time of your life.”
Check out the official facebook page and for Twitter updates.
South Bend Tribune's Tom Conway recently issued the following report:
Less than a year ago, Bret Michaels was rushed to the hospital, where doctors discovered the Poison singer had suffered a brain hemorrhage that nearly killed him.
"It was totally life-changing, as you might expect," Michaels says. "The doctors said, 'If you have children, you need to bring them down.' Those are words you never want to hear. It transcends scary. It's really the deepest, most wrenching kind of fear."
"When I got out of the hospital, I feel like a lot of people expected me to sit at home and wait for the sky to fall, and that's not me," he says. "If anything, the experience said to me, 'Life is short and life is fragile, so you better go live it.' ... Rock and
Michaels claims an accident at the 2009 Tony Awards show caused the brain hemorrhage. He declined comment on the lawsuit he filed last month against CBS and the show's producers.
"That's for the lawyers right now," he says. "It's pretty complicated and I'm not one to spill my legal life out to the world."
After his solo concert tour, Michaels will reunite with his Poison bandmates this summer for a co-headlining tour with fellow glam metal band MÖTLEY CRÜE. Poison - with more than 25 million albums sold worldwide and such hits as 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn' and 'Nothin' But A Good Time' - is celebrating 25 years in the music business this year. Michaels says it doesn't surprise him that they are still together.
"I think I did imagine a lifelong career with them," he says. "Life is about loyalty to me. You stick together. I'm still amazed by Poison and by what we've done together in our career so far. We turned nothing into something. And we never faked it."
Michaels says the members of Poison - C.C. DeVille, Bobby Dall and Rikki Rockett - don't have any plans to record any new music, but they are releasing a double CD retrospective of their greatest hits, Double Dose Of Poison: Ultimate Hits, next month.
"As far as writing all-new material, I'm not sure when that will happen," Michaels says. "But I'm sure that it will one day. I love writing music and I love those guys as though they're my brothers. When the time is right and the inspiration hits, I'm sure we'll all find ourselves back in the studio together."
Read the full report at this location.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Barry Bonds found guilty of obstruction
ESPN.com news services
SAN FRANCISCO -- The jury in the Barry Bonds case convicted the seven-time MVP of obstruction of justice, but the defense and prosecution agreed to a mistrial on the other three remaining counts.The guilty verdict on obstruction of justice means the jury believed Bonds hindered a grand jury's 2003 sports doping investigation by lying.
The judge, after speaking to the jury foreman, said she believes the mistrial is the proper decision given that the jury believes it has reached a crossroads.
The eight women and four men returned the verdict after four days of deliberations. The jury worked behind closed doors since rehearing some testimony early Monday.
Bonds was charged with three counts of lying to a grand jury and one count of obstruction.
Prosecutors allege that Bonds lied when he denied knowingly taking steroids and human growth hormone. A third count of making a false statement charges that Bonds lied when he said no one other than his doctor ever injected him with anything.
Bonds' case is the culmination of a federal investigation that began in 2002 into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which distributed performance-enhancing drugs to athletes.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Davies Brothers To Meet To Discuss Kinks Reunion
4/13/2011 8:25 AM ET
A long-awaited Kinks reunion may be in the works, with the band's chief members, Ray and Dave Davies, speaking again. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Ray revealed that a reunion may be possible and that he will be meeting with his brother to discuss it. "I'm seeing Dave next week. I hear that Dave is saying stuff in the press like, 'I'll do it, but Ray doesn't want to do it.' This is me saying, 'Ray will do it if Dave does it.'" Kimberly Stewart Pregnant With Benicio Del Toro's Child
Kimberly Stewart Pregnant With Benicio Del Toro's Child
4/12/2011 9:26 PM ET
Kimberly Stewart, daughter of singer Rod Stewart, is pregnant with the child of Benicio Del Toro, according to a report by Life and Style Magazine. However, the pair are not in a relationship, the report said. A representative for Stewart says that the two are looking forward to the birth of the child. "Kimberly is pregnant," the rep said. "Benicio is the father and is very supportive. Although they are not a couple, they are looking forward to the arrival of the baby."
Eddie Van Halen Makes a Wild Child Out of Valerie Bertinelli — Twisted Tales
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
From Spinner.com:
Thirty years ago, the hard rock powerhouse known as Van Halen was just coming into its own, and by April of 1981, the original group was already in deep trouble. At the end of the month, Van Halen would release its fourth album, ‘Fair Warning’ and the last track, sung by frontman David Lee Roth, was called ‘One Foot Out the Door.’
The timing of the band’s self-titled debut, which came out in 1978, gave Van Halen an odd, tenuous connection to punk rock (“Homegrown Punk,” read the headline of an L.A. Times feature). In truth, the band had been together since 1972, when young brothers Alex and Eddie Van Halen, born in the Netherlands, started an L.A. rock group with Roth, the guy who rented them their sound system. After toying with several names (Mammoth, Rat Salade, the already-taken Genesis) and the backing of Kiss’ Gene Simmons, the band settled on naming itself after the brothers.
Following the monster success of the band’s first two albums, Roth would stick around until 1985, when the band replaced him with ex-Montrose belter Sammy Hagar. But Roth and Eddie Van Halen were already at odds by the time of ‘Fair Warning.’
A few weeks before the album’s release, on April 11, 1981, the prodigious guitarist got married to Valerie Bertinelli. Given his bride’s line of work — she was a young actress famous for her long-running role as sensible Barbara Cooper on the Norman Lear sitcom ‘One Day at a Time’ — it might have been easy to assume that Eddie’s newfound domesticity was causing the rift in the legendarily hard-rocking band.
Instead, the unlikely couple lapsed into a reckless rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle together. In a TV interview not long after their wedding, Bertinelli said she and her husband had taken a little of “each other’s personality.” He’d calmed down a little, she claimed, while she was getting a little wilder. To change her image, she was taking more “adult” roles, starting with the lead in the made-for-TV movie ‘I Was a Mail Order Bride.’
By the time Hagar joined the group, as he recounts in ‘Red,’ his best-selling new memoir, the Van Halens were living in squalor in a modest two-bedroom house with a filthy recording studio in the garage. They had to blow ashes off the mixing board just to plug in. They called the studio 5150 (also the name of their first album with Hagar) — police code for dealing with a crazy person.
On her TV show, Bertinelli acted opposite Mackenzie Phillips, the notoriously troubled daughter of Mamas and the Papas founder John Phillips, who played the rebellious Cooper sister, Julie. In reality, Bertinelli’s struggles with drugs and alcohol kept pace with those of her former acting partner.
Eddie Van Halen’s well-documented appetite for self-destruction is one big reason ‘Red’ is selling so well. As it turns out, Bertinelli matched him blow for blow. Cocaine abuse made her dread mornings. “It took me years after stopping the cocaine before I was able to enjoy a sunrise and enjoy the sound of birds,” she told Oprah Winfrey a few years ago.
By then, she and her beloved Edward were divorced, their marriage a casualty of mutual indulgence. They have since both remarried, with each attending the other’s second wedding. Meanwhile, their son, Wolfgang, who turned 20 in March, has been Van Halen’s bassist since 2006. He’s the pride and joy of the twosome CNN once called “the ultimate good girl-bad boy coupling.”
The timing of the band’s self-titled debut, which came out in 1978, gave Van Halen an odd, tenuous connection to punk rock (“Homegrown Punk,” read the headline of an L.A. Times feature). In truth, the band had been together since 1972, when young brothers Alex and Eddie Van Halen, born in the Netherlands, started an L.A. rock group with Roth, the guy who rented them their sound system. After toying with several names (Mammoth, Rat Salade, the already-taken Genesis) and the backing of Kiss’ Gene Simmons, the band settled on naming itself after the brothers.
Following the monster success of the band’s first two albums, Roth would stick around until 1985, when the band replaced him with ex-Montrose belter Sammy Hagar. But Roth and Eddie Van Halen were already at odds by the time of ‘Fair Warning.’
A few weeks before the album’s release, on April 11, 1981, the prodigious guitarist got married to Valerie Bertinelli. Given his bride’s line of work — she was a young actress famous for her long-running role as sensible Barbara Cooper on the Norman Lear sitcom ‘One Day at a Time’ — it might have been easy to assume that Eddie’s newfound domesticity was causing the rift in the legendarily hard-rocking band.
Instead, the unlikely couple lapsed into a reckless rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle together. In a TV interview not long after their wedding, Bertinelli said she and her husband had taken a little of “each other’s personality.” He’d calmed down a little, she claimed, while she was getting a little wilder. To change her image, she was taking more “adult” roles, starting with the lead in the made-for-TV movie ‘I Was a Mail Order Bride.’
By the time Hagar joined the group, as he recounts in ‘Red,’ his best-selling new memoir, the Van Halens were living in squalor in a modest two-bedroom house with a filthy recording studio in the garage. They had to blow ashes off the mixing board just to plug in. They called the studio 5150 (also the name of their first album with Hagar) — police code for dealing with a crazy person.
On her TV show, Bertinelli acted opposite Mackenzie Phillips, the notoriously troubled daughter of Mamas and the Papas founder John Phillips, who played the rebellious Cooper sister, Julie. In reality, Bertinelli’s struggles with drugs and alcohol kept pace with those of her former acting partner.
Eddie Van Halen’s well-documented appetite for self-destruction is one big reason ‘Red’ is selling so well. As it turns out, Bertinelli matched him blow for blow. Cocaine abuse made her dread mornings. “It took me years after stopping the cocaine before I was able to enjoy a sunrise and enjoy the sound of birds,” she told Oprah Winfrey a few years ago.
By then, she and her beloved Edward were divorced, their marriage a casualty of mutual indulgence. They have since both remarried, with each attending the other’s second wedding. Meanwhile, their son, Wolfgang, who turned 20 in March, has been Van Halen’s bassist since 2006. He’s the pride and joy of the twosome CNN once called “the ultimate good girl-bad boy coupling.”
WHITESNAKE'S "FOREVERMORE" SLITHERS IN TO TOP 50 ALBUM CHARTS WORLDWIDE:
Whitesnake's brand new album Forevermore released worldwide on Frontiers Records, has made its worldwide debut bowing in the Top 50 of multiple countries' album charts. In the United States, Forevermore comes in at #48 on the Billboard Top 200 Current Album chart and arrives even higher in numerous European countries. Forevermore charts at #6 in Sweden, #11 in Finland, #15 in the Czech Republic, #16 in Germany, #17 in Switzerland, #27 in Austria, #41 in Italy and #42 in both The Netherlands and Poland, respectively.
Forevermore finds founder/singer/songwriter David Coverdale and company returning to their no-holds-barred, bluesiest, sexiest rock n' roll roots and is the band's 11th studio album. Forevermore was recorded, produced and mixed by Los Bros Brutalos (Coverdale, Doug Aldrich and Michael McIntyre). Whitesnake is David Coverdale (vocals), Doug Aldrich (guitars), Reb Beach (guitars), Michael Devin (bass) and Briian Tichy (drums).
Formed in 1977, and steered by the legendary David Coverdale, Whitesnake carry a rightful reputation as one of the world's leading rock n' roll bands. Coverdale's blues roots, combined with a feral sense of rockin' and rollin', have consistently shaped the 'Snake's sound along with Coverdale's love and appreciation of impeccable musicianship. Whitesnake's ascent to the very top of the rock n' roll heap was confirmed with 1987's self-titled mega-platinum album, which saw two massive Top 10 hits, two #1 singles with “Here I Go Again” and “Is This Love” and a virtual 24-hour domination of MTV around the world.
For more information please visit: www.whitesnake.com / www.frontiers.it.
Steven Tyler Will Publish His Memoirs Worldwide On May 3
His book, "Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?," comes out at a time when the 63-year-old singer's job as a judge on TV show "American Idol" is winning him new, younger fans who may not be familiar with his sordid past.
It will be published by News Corp's HarperCollins, the firm said on Tuesday.
Tyler previously wrote about his life in the 1997 memoir "Walk This Way," on which he and his bandmates collaborated with Steven Davis. Tyler worked on his book with David Dalton.
His book will be "the unbridled truth, the in-your-face, up-close and prodigious tale of Steven Tyler straight from the horse's lips," he said.
Tyler, who was born Steven Victor Tallarico in Yonkers, New York, in 1948, rose to fame in the early '70s when Aerosmith broke through as America's answer to the Rolling Stones. Indeed the perpetually amped Tyler and laconic guitarist Joe Perry fashioned themselves on Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, respectively, earning the moniker the Toxic Twins.
With hits such as "Dream On," "Walk This Way" and "Back in the Saddle," the band sold out arenas everywhere. But the wheels fell off by the late '70s as drugs took over. Perry and fellow guitarist Brad Whitford quit for a few years, and Aerosmith became another sad rock 'n' roll casualty.
But by the mid-1980s, with a new manager on board who forced them to go to rehab, Aerosmith started an unlikely comeback, helped by popular MTV videos and a resurgence in the popularity of hard rock.
But the last decade has been tough on the band, which has struggled to record a follow-up to its last album of original material, 2001's "Just Push Play." Long-time fans worried that Aerosmith was singing too many ballads, and were dismayed when their hard-living heroes played a Super Bowl half-time show with fresh-faced boy band 'N Sync.
Internal tensions boiled over in 2009 when Tyler fell off the stage during a concert and his frustrated bandmates threatened to hire a new singer to replace him. Tyler hired a separate management team and barely communicated with the other members while he made his own plans for life outside the band.
But the filial bonds appear to have grown back, and the band has slowly been working on a new album, while Tyler shares his spirited opinion on "American Idol," the top-rated show in the United States.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
ON THIS DAY IN ROCK HISTORY
On this day in 1954, Bill Haley & His Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock" at Pythian Temple studios in New York City. Written by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers, the song was first recorded by Italian-American band Sonny Dae and His Knights. Considered by many to be the song that put rock and roll on the map around the world, Haley's version was used over the opening titles of the film Blackboard Jungle and went on to become a worldwide #1.
On this day in 1966, Jan Berry, of Jan & Dean, was almost killed when he crashed his Porsche into a parked truck a short distance from Dead Man's Curve in Los Angeles. Partially paralyzed and suffering brain damage, Berry was able to walk again after extensive therapy.
On this day in 1967, Mick Jagger was punched in the face by an airport official during a row at Le Bourget Airport in Paris. Jagger lost his temper after the Stones entourage was being searched for drugs, resulting in them missing their flight.
On this day in 1975, David Bowie announced his second career retirement, saying, "I've rocked my roll. It's a boring dead end, there will be no more rock'n'roll records from me." Find out what else happened on this date in music history here
On this day in 1966, Jan Berry, of Jan & Dean, was almost killed when he crashed his Porsche into a parked truck a short distance from Dead Man's Curve in Los Angeles. Partially paralyzed and suffering brain damage, Berry was able to walk again after extensive therapy.
On this day in 1967, Mick Jagger was punched in the face by an airport official during a row at Le Bourget Airport in Paris. Jagger lost his temper after the Stones entourage was being searched for drugs, resulting in them missing their flight.
On this day in 1975, David Bowie announced his second career retirement, saying, "I've rocked my roll. It's a boring dead end, there will be no more rock'n'roll records from me." Find out what else happened on this date in music history here
GOO GOO DOLLS CONFIRM TOUR DATES FOR SUMMER 2011:
Goo Goo Dolls have extended their American tour with dates that will take the band across the U.S. through late August including cities that they have not played in some time. The band's current album, Something For The Rest Of Us, continues to garner global critical praise:
“'Something For The Rest of Us' flows with emotional rock anthems" - USA Today
“Anthemic rock really doesn't come much better than that of the Goo Goo Dolls. Twelve soaring radio anthems to make you smile” - Kerrang! (U.K.)
“'Something For The Rest of Us' displays both emotional and musical heft and dynamic ebbs and flows” – Billboard
More than ever, the songs of John Rzeznik seem to resonate deeply into the common consciousness of us all reflecting the universal emotional fallout of our times in song. It's no wonder the Goos have broken the record for The Most Top 10 or higher Hits in Radio History, per Billboard Magazine.
Rzeznik, bassist Robby Takac, and drummer Mike Malinin are on the road now. Don't miss Goo Goo Dolls live this summer with Special Guests Michelle Branch and Parachute.
Full date details plus ticket information at: www.googoodolls.com.
JAVIER BARDEM OFFERED ROLE IN "DARK TOWER" MOVIE SERIES
011 12:21 PM ET 
The first installment of the series (which will condense the seven-novel epic into film and television formats) is set to be scripted by Akiva Goldsman and adapted and directed by Ron Howard and is slated for release in the fall.
Howard had previously revealed that Jon Hamm ("Mad Men"), Daniel Craig ("James Bond"), Hugh Jackman ("X-Men"), and Viggo Mortensen ("Lord of the Rings") had been considered for the role of Deschain.
(RTTNews) - Javier Bardem has been offered a starring role in the three-movie, multi-miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's book series "The Dark Tower."
The Spanish actor (who received an Academy Award for his performance in the Coen brothers film "No Country For Old Men" and was nominated for an Academy Award for his 2010 role in "Biutiful") is currently in talks for the role of Roland Deschain, the last member of a knightly order that must find the Dark Tower on his quest to reunite all universes.The first installment of the series (which will condense the seven-novel epic into film and television formats) is set to be scripted by Akiva Goldsman and adapted and directed by Ron Howard and is slated for release in the fall.
Howard had previously revealed that Jon Hamm ("Mad Men"), Daniel Craig ("James Bond"), Hugh Jackman ("X-Men"), and Viggo Mortensen ("Lord of the Rings") had been considered for the role of Deschain.
Monday, April 11, 2011
HOP STAYS #1 AT THE BOX OFFICE
4/11/2011 10:39 AM ET
(RTTNews) - In a weekend with an eclectic set of new releases that struggled at the box office, animated film "Hop" easily finished atop the charts for a second consecutive weekend with $21.70 million. The only new release to earn $5,000 per theater was sports drama "Soul Surfer," as the others, "Arthur," "Hanna" and "Your Highness," all had difficulty tapping into their target demographics.
After its second straight weekend as the top movie at the box office, "Hop" has now brought in an impressive $68 million domestically. Though it should start seeing a sizeable decrease with competition for family audiences coming up, "Hop" is already a rare commercial success for an animated distributor outside of Buena Vista and Paramount. With a relatively modest production budget of $63 million, Universal's "Hop" should be able to cross $100 million domestically and could even see some decent overseas figures as well. Not doing nearly as well over the weekend was the widest release "Arthur," a remake of a popular Dudley Moore comedy from the early 1980s. The 2011 edition got off to a dubious start at the box office by earning $12.61 million over the weekend at 3,276 total theaters - good for a paltry per theater average of just $3,848. Unless "Arthur" really turns it around in the next couple of weekends, it will end up a fairly disappointing release for distributor Warner Brothers, not to mention another example of how hard it is to market British-based humor to American audiences.
Doing slightly better in a smaller release was action-thriller "Hanna," which brought in $12.32 million at 700 fewer theaters than "Arthur." Though its per theater average of $4,861 isn't exactly eye-popping, it also isn't terrible for a quirky, somewhat limited action release in the middle of April. With very positive critical reviews, "Hanna" could even gain some strength in the coming weekends and end up as a quiet success for distributor Focus Features.
"Soul Surfer" tells the story of a young female surfer who came back to the sport after losing her arm in a shark attack when she was 13 years old. Though it seemed that "Soul Surfer" was aimed more for niche audiences, it now appears that the story is resonating with a much wider audience than expected and it should end up as a nice earner for TriStar.
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FREE DOWNLOADING NOT AN EFFECT ON MUSIC/MOVIE INDUSTRY!
Industry failure not down to pirates, say financial experts
Labels lie to hide incompetency, new study suggests as it states “downloads’ effects on sales are statically indistinguishable from zero”
…Or is it? LSE suggest otherwise
Bosses of the music and movie industries have focused on blaming pirate activity for all negative financial results, and have ignored the fact there’s a decline in leisure spending across the world, says the LSE. They conclude that pirates are not to blame for a drop in sales. Instead, people are simply spending less on leisure pursuits because they’re faced with higher bills, lower pay rises and less job security.
And the report points out that people who don’t own computers – and therefore can’t share files – have stopped buying music at exactly the same rate as those who do.
Citing an earlier report the LSE quotes: “Downloads have an effect on sales that is statistically indistinguishable from zero.”
While bosses avoid tackling the real causes of the industry’s decline, it will continue, they say: “Household budgets for entertainment are relatively inelastic. Downward pressure on leisure expenditure will increase due to rising costs of living and unemployment, and drastic rises in the costs of public services.”
The LSE report suggests the introduction of strong laws against online piracy will not prevent the music business from collapsing – and that bungling bosses are only wasting time and dwindling resources by claiming otherwise.
Mathew Lasar of Ars Technica says: “The content industry has won a key aspect of the war: the argument that filesharing has hobbled the music and movie businesses, hurts artists and costs jobs.
“The LSE’s paper argues that everything the content industry says about filesharing is wrong. It suggests filesharing is the future, and that revenue downturns can be explained by other forces.”
A different study does indicate that filesharing could be responsible for 20% of lost income – but also finds the other 80% is a result of the music industry’s own sales techniques in offering music in a massive range of formats from digital singles to video game add-ons.
Legal filesharing is on the increase across the world – the LSE says income from digital streams has increased by over 1000% between 2004 and 2010 to $4.6bn.
In January industry pressure group the BPI let slip that their position on filesharing is based on the assumption that, without pirates, sales would never drop.
Commenting on UK figures which showed physical album sales were down by 12% in 2010 while digital album sales were up by 30%, BPI boss Geoff Taylor said: “Legal downloads should be able to offset the decline in CD sales.”
Poison's Rikki Rocket Interview
POISON Drummer RIKKI ROCKETT - "We Have Learnt So Much In Our Career It Amazes Me That We Are Not Putting All Of Those Things Together Into An Album"
Rock Hard
Posted on Sunday, April 10, 2011 at 10:37:41 EST By Mitch Lafon
When POISON released their first album back in 1986, the hip rock critics panned the band and gave them less than a year to exist. Well, twenty-five years later the band rolls on and drummer Rikki Rockett looks back on his time in Poison with pride and looks forward with eager anticipation. Bravewords.com caught up with the affable skin man to discuss rock’s greatest guilty pleasure, Poison.
Bravewords.com: You’re on tour this summer with MÖTLEY CRÜE. Fans have been clamoring for this double bill since 1986, but the Motley guys never seemed to take Poison seriously and often put down the band. Has that negative energy passed or will this tour truly be a battle of the bands?
Rikki Rockett: “I never had the negative energy and, honestly, I’ve always been a Mötley Crüe fan. Let me put it to you this way, recently, I read this article about motorcyclists from an outsider’s perspective and if you don’t ride a motorcycle you think all motorcycles are the same. You don’t know the difference between a Harley, Yamaha or a Triumph until you’re in it and then all of a sudden everything seems so different. So for a fan that loves ‘80s music they don’t care about… They like a TESLA song, a Motley song, a BON JOVI song and they don’t understand the nuances between the images or this and that. Your general overall fan just likes good music. They like good songs and you can’t have just one band in your playlist. In fact, most don’t even have one genre in their playlist. Most people like everything. If, for example, you look at my wife’s playlist she’s got everything from Motley to MAROON 5 to country. You can’t live by bread alone. I think too many bands get wrapped up in this stuff. I had a beer one time with Lars Ulrich and at the same time there was a cover story in Hit Parader aboutMETALLICA versus Poison. I said to Lars, ‘are we fighting?’ and he said, ‘not that I know of’. People get too twisted about this stuff. What’s worst is when the band starts to get twisted about it too. I don’t know where this stuff comes from. We’ve always gotten along with Motley, but we went through this little period of time where there were some differences and I do understand Motley going ‘we started earlier in rock and if the whole ‘80s thing is coming down – we need to separate ourselves away from it if we want to continue to have a career.’ I get that, but I do think that if you turn tail and run from who you are that can be devastating.”
Bravewords.com: Especially, when fans grew up loving your music and that image. Is there really a difference between Home Sweet Home and Every Rose Has It’s Thorn?
Rockett: “No, not really. A good song is a good song. Mötley Crüe and Poison have been through similar circumstances. The nuances are subtle from a fan’s perspective and the main thing is fans are going to love this.”
Bravewords.com: Absolutely and fans are going to get a three hour show filled with about forty top ten hits.
Rockett: “Absolutely and these tours work because fans can bank on getting a lot of bang for the buck. That’s why, for example, STYX and JOURNEY go out together. They may not be the hippest bands on the planet, but it doesn’t matter because you get great music and you know you’re going to get great music. Whereas when people see a bunch of newer bands… you might see eight of them on a bill but, at best, get six good songs. That’s why packages like ours work in this touring market. There’s not a lot of money to go around and we’ve done everything we can to keep tickets prices down.”
Bravewords.com: Do you adjust your set list at all because Mötley Crüe is coming on after you? Do you include more of the faster songs and pull out some of the ballads?
Rockett: “You know what Mitch, we haven’t sat down as a band and talked about it yet.”
Bravewords.com: What would you like to do?
Rockett: “I’d like to do everything. Obviously, we have to keep our hits in there because people want that, but I would probably open up with Let Me Go To The Show, drag some of the older stuff out and just challenge ourselves a little bit more. Motley is going to have a bigger show because they’re headlining, so I’d rather focus on our songs and what the fans really want. I’ve been reading on Facebook what the fans really want and they want something different in the set. We need to write down all the hits we need to cover, but from then on change almost everything. Do all different stuff to what we’ve been doing over the last years. Leave out all the cover songs and just do Poison songs.”
Bravewords.com: As a fan, I think that would be the best thing. If you’re going to play only (maybe) twelve songs, I don’t need to hear your cover of THE ROMANTICS or KISS. I’d rather hear 'Back To The Rocking Horse', 'Play Dirty' or 'Blame It On You'.
Rockett: “That’s a great idea by the way. 'Blame It On You' is really a fun song to play.”
Bravewords.com: Quite frankly, you could just play the entire first album from start to finish and you’re done.
Rockett: “I would love for us to book a couple of special shows where we just go and do the whole Look What The Cat Dragged In album. Then, in the encores, we could do a couple of the other hits from the later records, but just cover Cat from top to bottom. We could do the choreography and everything. Obviously, we can’t do everything like it was 1986 nor should we try, but we could be similarly energetic.”
Bravewords.com: Do you think this idea is something the band would consider doing at some point? Isn’t this is the 25th anniversary of Look What The Cat Dragged In?
Rockett: “You know Mitch, that’s exactly what this is and this is exactly what I’ve been trying to get the band to do. I think we should lead the tour with this or end the tour with it. In the situation that we are in with Motley, I think we need to mix up all of our songs for now, but if we did some of our own shows; I think that exactly what you and I are talking about would be great. I would love it. I would really love it. I think fans would go crazy and we could do the set-up the same way and I could build a kit… By the way the kit I built for this year’s tour is a knock-off from the original Open Up and Say Ahh kit.”
Bravewords.com: Speaking from a fan’s perspective, I think this would be a great way to celebrate the beginnings of the band. I would love to hear 'Blame It On You' (like I said before), but also 'Cry Tough' and '#1 Bad Boy'…
Rockett: “I would absolutely love it. I wish to God I could re-record those songs because I play so much different now. The core of who I am is the same, but I would put so much better of a spin on it now and throw those little things in that I just didn’t know back then. They always say that you should really go out on tour first, play all your songs and then come home and record them, but that’s not how we work in the music business. We do exactly the opposite, so you don’t always get all those choices. We were on a budget on that record. We were banging out four tracks a day.”
Bravewords.com: The whole album took only twelve days…
Rockett: “Yeah. That included pre-production and all that. We just had no time. Our main idea when we went in to do that record was not to have a technically proficient record because we just didn’t have the time for that, but what we needed to make it do is freaking ‘party’ (and that’s what we needed to do with our videos as well). We just didn’t have the budget. You don’t want to plant tomatoes in the desert. You plant a cactus in the desert. We decided to take what we knew would grow in that environment and did the best we could with it and that’s why I think that record works. That fervent feel of it is contagious. Believe me, we were not at the best place in our lives when we made that record. We had been turned down by every record company and here we were settling… well, at that time we considered it to be settling for an independent, but when I look back I’m glad we did because it put us in the driver’s seat. At the time, we didn’t have any money. We couldn’t play any gigs for a while because we were concentrating on putting together songs for the album (writing and all that stuff). We disappeared from the circuit so we couldn’t bring any money in. We were dirt poor Mitch. We didn’t have anything and we weren’t at the best place in our lives, but our music ‘partied’, we lived in that and we decided to make a record that felt like that because if it lived in us maybe it would live in other people too. It worked.”
Bravewords.com: It did work. It’s been twenty-five years since I first bought it and I’m still not fed up with it yet. I put it on the other day and listened to it from top to bottom. You simply cannot put on that album and only listen to one song. You have to play the whole album. To me, it’s still magical. If you ever play one of those albums shows – make sure you capture it on film and put it out on Blu-ray. You’ll be able to update the sound like you mentioned before, but without having to re-record the album.
Rockett: “Mitch, maybe you should manage us (laughs).”
Bravewords.com: Speaking of albums – isn’t it time for a new Poison album? I see Bret running around doing solo album after solo album and I keep thinking ‘wouldn’t it be great to have CC, Rikki and Bobby on those tracks’. I want some new Poison…
Rockett: “You know Mitch - here’s the thing that drives me crazy, we have learnt so much in our career… in our twenty-five years, yet it amazes me that we are not putting all of those things together (that we have learned) into an album. We could make a really great record at this point. I know I’m a better player than I was even ten years ago. I know everybody is better. Everybody has had more experiences… I can’t tell you how overdue a new record is. I am so with you on that. That’s what I wanted to do this past summer quite honestly and then we could be going out on this tour with a new record. It’s never to late to make a new record in my opinion and maybe it would be really good to do it after we come off of this. We could go back out headlining next year with a new record. I’d love that. It’s time… it’s time.”
Bravewords.com: Do you think it’ll happen? Doesn’t it get to be annoying to be nothing more than a heritage act at this point (and I don’t mean to be negative)?
Rockett: “YES! Absolutely it does. Bret is doing a lot of his own stuff right now, so he feels like he’s not being a heritage act. He’s spending a lot of time on his own stuff and that makes it fairly difficult to work around.”
Bravewords.com: I listened a lot to RATT’s new album (Infestation) that came out last year and the guys hit a home run. Then, you hear the new ACCEPT album and it’s another home run. There’s no reason why Poison can’t hit a home run.
Rockett: “I really wish that Ratt album would get some play because it’s a great record. Blotzer is playing the best I’ve ever heard…it’s a great great record…”
Bravewords.com: And Pearcy couldn’t have sounded any better. As for Poison, what can fans expect apart from concerts?
Rockett: “It’s up to us to make a record. We’re in control of that and that’s what would turn the corner for me.”
Bravewords.com: It’s long overdue… Will you make another solo album to keep the creative juices flowing?
Rockett: “I’m going to continue to try and convince the band to do another Poison album, but I, for the first time, have decided to think about working on a side project. I really want to do something and I’ve been talking to a few people and if this tour didn’t happen that’s what I’d be doing this summer. Obviously, I’m going to have to put it on hold for a little while. I’m all about keeping the focus on Poison, but if Poison is not working next year then that’s what I’m going to be doing and I’m going to have fun with it. I’ve never stepped outside of Poison and tried something in a serious way, but if I do – I’m going to give it everything. I’m not going to half-ass it…”
Bravewords.com: By side project – do you mean another solo album or a new band?
Rockett: “It’ll be a new band. The solo record was a fun project, but as a solo artist I wouldn’t go out and make a covers record. I would make an album of songs that I wrote. That album was just something I wanted to do and it was a fun thing. I though about going through all the eras of music and I think it would be really fun to step up and do an early punk record of covers. Not in any serious way, but just something fun to do. I made Glitter For Your Soul in my little studio to reconnect to some of those ‘70s artists. I reached out to all those people and made friends that I still have to this day. Life is about having these new experiences.”
Bravewords.com: If you do a side-project, would it be an extension of Poison music or will it be the Rikki Rockett jazz album?
Rockett: “It would be a straight ahead rock record very much like BAD COMPANY. That’s my favorite type of rock to play. I like all kinds of stuff – I’m truly a music fan, but this is what naturally comes out of me so why fight it? I love to stretch out and try new things, but I do know who I am and you’re not going to get a Rikki Rockett jazz record because there isn’t a single jazz fan that would take me seriously, but there’s no reason why I can’t throw some influence in there if I want to. That’s all I need to do to make myself feel good about that challenge.”
Bravewords.com: Poison has been around for twenty-seven years or so now – what was the magic that made you last so long? I remember reading Circus or Hit Parader back in the day and you were supposed to be the next one-hit wonder if that…
Rockett: “I have two answers for that. It’s like when you have that damn car that for some reason just keeps running even though everything about it was supposed to have broken down. If you really examine it though, first of all, we have a slew of hits and secondly we built a huge following through touring. Every step that we took somebody said, ‘this will be the last step Poison takes’. ‘They’ll have a flop on their second record (the sophomore flop),’ and then the second one happened and we did even better. Every step that we took was really digging into the roots of what makes a rock band work and be successful. It’s touring and reaching out to the fans – on the first headlining tour Mitch, we played every single ‘B’ market… we played ‘C’ markets. Our thinking was, ‘if they’re not coming to us then we’re coming to them’. That was our goal – to hit every city in the United States and that’s what we did. Besides the hits, that’s eighty percent of why we’ve lasted. Same thing with Metallica and I have all the respect in the world for Metallica because they beat the trail. They would do two or three year tours.”
Bravewords.com: As far as touring goes – you’re essentially a US-only band. You don’t head over to Asia, Europe or Australia often if at all. Is there a plan to hit those markets this year or next?
Rockett: “There’s an offer for a couple of shows in Australia, but I don’t know that we could afford to make it make sense right now. You have to put together a proper tour. We don’t want to go over there and disappoint people.”
Bravewords.com: Does Poison continue forever and do the occasional tour here and there or is there a five year plan to retirement?
Rockett: “At this point, we have no desire to quit.”
Bravewords.com: As long as fans keep showing up – you’ll keep playing.
Rockett: “I think so. I know I will. This has been my baby for a really long time and I really love it. By no means am I bored with it, but maybe we could make new songs because I’m a little bored playing the same songs over and over again. Besides that I enjoy it. It’s a struggle at times too and you could say we’re a comedy of errors, but if it weren’t so funny it would be tragic.”
Bravewords.com: I really do hope that you can get together and make a new album. Finally, how is your Rockett Drum Works company doing (Rockettdrumworks.com)?
Rockett: “It’s going great. I’m finally getting into that spot, where in a year, I can be big enough to support my guys but not this huge company where there are all these board meetings just to do one little thing. Right now, I can turn on a dime and do anything I need to do. I’m in a really great position right now.”
For more:
Website: RikkiRockett.com
Twitter: Twitter.com/RikkiRockett
Facebook: Facebook.com/RikkiRockett
Blog: Rikkirockett.wordpress.com
Credits are as follows:
Photos: (c) 2011 Robin Perine Photography (RobinPerine.com)
Stylist: Eliza Black
Designs: Marc Vachon (MarcVachon.com) & Tattoo Knuckle Gloves
When POISON released their first album back in 1986, the hip rock critics panned the band and gave them less than a year to exist. Well, twenty-five years later the band rolls on and drummer Rikki Rockett looks back on his time in Poison with pride and looks forward with eager anticipation. Bravewords.com caught up with the affable skin man to discuss rock’s greatest guilty pleasure, Poison.
Bravewords.com: You’re on tour this summer with MÖTLEY CRÜE. Fans have been clamoring for this double bill since 1986, but the Motley guys never seemed to take Poison seriously and often put down the band. Has that negative energy passed or will this tour truly be a battle of the bands?
Rikki Rockett: “I never had the negative energy and, honestly, I’ve always been a Mötley Crüe fan. Let me put it to you this way, recently, I read this article about motorcyclists from an outsider’s perspective and if you don’t ride a motorcycle you think all motorcycles are the same. You don’t know the difference between a Harley, Yamaha or a Triumph until you’re in it and then all of a sudden everything seems so different. So for a fan that loves ‘80s music they don’t care about… They like a TESLA song, a Motley song, a BON JOVI song and they don’t understand the nuances between the images or this and that. Your general overall fan just likes good music. They like good songs and you can’t have just one band in your playlist. In fact, most don’t even have one genre in their playlist. Most people like everything. If, for example, you look at my wife’s playlist she’s got everything from Motley to MAROON 5 to country. You can’t live by bread alone. I think too many bands get wrapped up in this stuff. I had a beer one time with Lars Ulrich and at the same time there was a cover story in Hit Parader about
Bravewords.com: Especially, when fans grew up loving your music and that image. Is there really a difference between Home Sweet Home and Every Rose Has It’s Thorn?
Rockett: “No, not really. A good song is a good song. Mötley Crüe and Poison have been through similar circumstances. The nuances are subtle from a fan’s perspective and the main thing is fans are going to love this.”
Bravewords.com: Absolutely and fans are going to get a three hour show filled with about forty top ten hits.
Rockett: “Absolutely and these tours work because fans can bank on getting a lot of bang for the buck. That’s why, for example, STYX and JOURNEY go out together. They may not be the hippest bands on the planet, but it doesn’t matter because you get great music and you know you’re going to get great music. Whereas when people see a bunch of newer bands… you might see eight of them on a bill but, at best, get six good songs. That’s why packages like ours work in this touring market. There’s not a lot of money to go around and we’ve done everything we can to keep tickets prices down.”
Bravewords.com: Do you adjust your set list at all because Mötley Crüe is coming on after you? Do you include more of the faster songs and pull out some of the ballads?
Rockett: “You know what Mitch, we haven’t sat down as a band and talked about it yet.”
Bravewords.com: What would you like to do?
Rockett: “I’d like to do everything. Obviously, we have to keep our hits in there because people want that, but I would probably open up with Let Me Go To The Show, drag some of the older stuff out and just challenge ourselves a little bit more. Motley is going to have a bigger show because they’re headlining, so I’d rather focus on our songs and what the fans really want. I’ve been reading on Facebook what the fans really want and they want something different in the set. We need to write down all the hits we need to cover, but from then on change almost everything. Do all different stuff to what we’ve been doing over the last years. Leave out all the cover songs and just do Poison songs.”
Bravewords.com: As a fan, I think that would be the best thing. If you’re going to play only (maybe) twelve songs, I don’t need to hear your cover of THE ROMANTICS or KISS. I’d rather hear 'Back To The Rocking Horse', 'Play Dirty' or 'Blame It On You'.
Rockett: “That’s a great idea by the way. 'Blame It On You' is really a fun song to play.”
Bravewords.com: Quite frankly, you could just play the entire first album from start to finish and you’re done.
Rockett: “I would love for us to book a couple of special shows where we just go and do the whole Look What The Cat Dragged In album. Then, in the encores, we could do a couple of the other hits from the later records, but just cover Cat from top to bottom. We could do the choreography and everything. Obviously, we can’t do everything like it was 1986 nor should we try, but we could be similarly energetic.”
Bravewords.com: Do you think this idea is something the band would consider doing at some point? Isn’t this is the 25th anniversary of Look What The Cat Dragged In?
Rockett: “You know Mitch, that’s exactly what this is and this is exactly what I’ve been trying to get the band to do. I think we should lead the tour with this or end the tour with it. In the situation that we are in with Motley, I think we need to mix up all of our songs for now, but if we did some of our own shows; I think that exactly what you and I are talking about would be great. I would love it. I would really love it. I think fans would go crazy and we could do the set-up the same way and I could build a kit… By the way the kit I built for this year’s tour is a knock-off from the original Open Up and Say Ahh kit.”
Bravewords.com: Speaking from a fan’s perspective, I think this would be a great way to celebrate the beginnings of the band. I would love to hear 'Blame It On You' (like I said before), but also 'Cry Tough' and '#1 Bad Boy'…
Rockett: “I would absolutely love it. I wish to God I could re-record those songs because I play so much different now. The core of who I am is the same, but I would put so much better of a spin on it now and throw those little things in that I just didn’t know back then. They always say that you should really go out on tour first, play all your songs and then come home and record them, but that’s not how we work in the music business. We do exactly the opposite, so you don’t always get all those choices. We were on a budget on that record. We were banging out four tracks a day.”
Bravewords.com: The whole album took only twelve days…
Rockett: “Yeah. That included pre-production and all that. We just had no time. Our main idea when we went in to do that record was not to have a technically proficient record because we just didn’t have the time for that, but what we needed to make it do is freaking ‘party’ (and that’s what we needed to do with our videos as well). We just didn’t have the budget. You don’t want to plant tomatoes in the desert. You plant a cactus in the desert. We decided to take what we knew would grow in that environment and did the best we could with it and that’s why I think that record works. That fervent feel of it is contagious. Believe me, we were not at the best place in our lives when we made that record. We had been turned down by every record company and here we were settling… well, at that time we considered it to be settling for an independent, but when I look back I’m glad we did because it put us in the driver’s seat. At the time, we didn’t have any money. We couldn’t play any gigs for a while because we were concentrating on putting together songs for the album (writing and all that stuff). We disappeared from the circuit so we couldn’t bring any money in. We were dirt poor Mitch. We didn’t have anything and we weren’t at the best place in our lives, but our music ‘partied’, we lived in that and we decided to make a record that felt like that because if it lived in us maybe it would live in other people too. It worked.”
Bravewords.com: It did work. It’s been twenty-five years since I first bought it and I’m still not fed up with it yet. I put it on the other day and listened to it from top to bottom. You simply cannot put on that album and only listen to one song. You have to play the whole album. To me, it’s still magical. If you ever play one of those albums shows – make sure you capture it on film and put it out on Blu-ray. You’ll be able to update the sound like you mentioned before, but without having to re-record the album.
Rockett: “Mitch, maybe you should manage us (laughs).”
Bravewords.com: Speaking of albums – isn’t it time for a new Poison album? I see Bret running around doing solo album after solo album and I keep thinking ‘wouldn’t it be great to have CC, Rikki and Bobby on those tracks’. I want some new Poison…
Rockett: “You know Mitch - here’s the thing that drives me crazy, we have learnt so much in our career… in our twenty-five years, yet it amazes me that we are not putting all of those things together (that we have learned) into an album. We could make a really great record at this point. I know I’m a better player than I was even ten years ago. I know everybody is better. Everybody has had more experiences… I can’t tell you how overdue a new record is. I am so with you on that. That’s what I wanted to do this past summer quite honestly and then we could be going out on this tour with a new record. It’s never to late to make a new record in my opinion and maybe it would be really good to do it after we come off of this. We could go back out headlining next year with a new record. I’d love that. It’s time… it’s time.”
Bravewords.com: Do you think it’ll happen? Doesn’t it get to be annoying to be nothing more than a heritage act at this point (and I don’t mean to be negative)?
Rockett: “YES! Absolutely it does. Bret is doing a lot of his own stuff right now, so he feels like he’s not being a heritage act. He’s spending a lot of time on his own stuff and that makes it fairly difficult to work around.”
Bravewords.com: I listened a lot to RATT’s new album (Infestation) that came out last year and the guys hit a home run. Then, you hear the new ACCEPT album and it’s another home run. There’s no reason why Poison can’t hit a home run.
Rockett: “I really wish that Ratt album would get some play because it’s a great record. Blotzer is playing the best I’ve ever heard…it’s a great great record…”
Bravewords.com: And Pearcy couldn’t have sounded any better. As for Poison, what can fans expect apart from concerts?
Rockett: “It’s up to us to make a record. We’re in control of that and that’s what would turn the corner for me.”
Bravewords.com: It’s long overdue… Will you make another solo album to keep the creative juices flowing?
Rockett: “I’m going to continue to try and convince the band to do another Poison album, but I, for the first time, have decided to think about working on a side project. I really want to do something and I’ve been talking to a few people and if this tour didn’t happen that’s what I’d be doing this summer. Obviously, I’m going to have to put it on hold for a little while. I’m all about keeping the focus on Poison, but if Poison is not working next year then that’s what I’m going to be doing and I’m going to have fun with it. I’ve never stepped outside of Poison and tried something in a serious way, but if I do – I’m going to give it everything. I’m not going to half-ass it…”
Bravewords.com: By side project – do you mean another solo album or a new band?
Rockett: “It’ll be a new band. The solo record was a fun project, but as a solo artist I wouldn’t go out and make a covers record. I would make an album of songs that I wrote. That album was just something I wanted to do and it was a fun thing. I though about going through all the eras of music and I think it would be really fun to step up and do an early punk record of covers. Not in any serious way, but just something fun to do. I made Glitter For Your Soul in my little studio to reconnect to some of those ‘70s artists. I reached out to all those people and made friends that I still have to this day. Life is about having these new experiences.”
Bravewords.com: If you do a side-project, would it be an extension of Poison music or will it be the Rikki Rockett jazz album?
Rockett: “It would be a straight ahead rock record very much like BAD COMPANY. That’s my favorite type of rock to play. I like all kinds of stuff – I’m truly a music fan, but this is what naturally comes out of me so why fight it? I love to stretch out and try new things, but I do know who I am and you’re not going to get a Rikki Rockett jazz record because there isn’t a single jazz fan that would take me seriously, but there’s no reason why I can’t throw some influence in there if I want to. That’s all I need to do to make myself feel good about that challenge.”
Bravewords.com: Poison has been around for twenty-seven years or so now – what was the magic that made you last so long? I remember reading Circus or Hit Parader back in the day and you were supposed to be the next one-hit wonder if that…
Rockett: “I have two answers for that. It’s like when you have that damn car that for some reason just keeps running even though everything about it was supposed to have broken down. If you really examine it though, first of all, we have a slew of hits and secondly we built a huge following through touring. Every step that we took somebody said, ‘this will be the last step Poison takes’. ‘They’ll have a flop on their second record (the sophomore flop),’ and then the second one happened and we did even better. Every step that we took was really digging into the roots of what makes a rock band work and be successful. It’s touring and reaching out to the fans – on the first headlining tour Mitch, we played every single ‘B’ market… we played ‘C’ markets. Our thinking was, ‘if they’re not coming to us then we’re coming to them’. That was our goal – to hit every city in the United States and that’s what we did. Besides the hits, that’s eighty percent of why we’ve lasted. Same thing with Metallica and I have all the respect in the world for Metallica because they beat the trail. They would do two or three year tours.”
Bravewords.com: As far as touring goes – you’re essentially a US-only band. You don’t head over to Asia, Europe or Australia often if at all. Is there a plan to hit those markets this year or next?
Rockett: “There’s an offer for a couple of shows in Australia, but I don’t know that we could afford to make it make sense right now. You have to put together a proper tour. We don’t want to go over there and disappoint people.”
Bravewords.com: Does Poison continue forever and do the occasional tour here and there or is there a five year plan to retirement?
Rockett: “At this point, we have no desire to quit.”
Bravewords.com: As long as fans keep showing up – you’ll keep playing.
Rockett: “I think so. I know I will. This has been my baby for a really long time and I really love it. By no means am I bored with it, but maybe we could make new songs because I’m a little bored playing the same songs over and over again. Besides that I enjoy it. It’s a struggle at times too and you could say we’re a comedy of errors, but if it weren’t so funny it would be tragic.”
Bravewords.com: I really do hope that you can get together and make a new album. Finally, how is your Rockett Drum Works company doing (Rockettdrumworks.com)?
Rockett: “It’s going great. I’m finally getting into that spot, where in a year, I can be big enough to support my guys but not this huge company where there are all these board meetings just to do one little thing. Right now, I can turn on a dime and do anything I need to do. I’m in a really great position right now.”
For more:
Website: RikkiRockett.com
Twitter: Twitter.com/RikkiRockett
Facebook: Facebook.com/RikkiRockett
Blog: Rikkirockett.wordpress.com
Credits are as follows:
Photos: (c) 2011 Robin Perine Photography (RobinPerine.com)
Stylist: Eliza Black
Designs: Marc Vachon (MarcVachon.com) & Tattoo Knuckle Gloves
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Ben Stiller In Talks To Star In 'The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty'
| |
4/9/2011 5:41 PM ET
James Thurber's 1939 short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" will be made into a film starring Ben Stiller. A previous film version, directed by Danny Kaye, premiered in 1947. The new production has suffered from undisclosed script problems; but, writer Steve Conrad ("The Pursuit of Happyness") has done a re-write with which Stiller was reportedly pleased. Several male leads previously showed interest including Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell, Mike Myers, Owen Wilson and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Keanu Reeves Says It Was “Horrible” Being Accused Of Fathering A Fan’s Child
KEANU Reeves says it was “horrible” being accused of fathering a fan’s children.
The Henry’s Crime star was accused of being the dad of at least one of Canadian woman Karen Sala’s four adult children and while DNA tests proved she was lying, Keanu admits it was an awful experience.
When asked what the craziest thing a fan has done to him, Keanu said, “Accuse me of being a father. I had to go to court. It was horrible. I didn’t do it. I’m not the dad.”
In 2009, Karen claimed Keanu used hypnosis and disguised himself as her ex-husband to impregnate her.
The 46-year-old actor had been advised to take a paternity test by his attorney when Karen went to court in Ontario, Canada, to claim he owed her child support payments.
She had asked for $150,000 per month in child support — retroactive from June 1988 — and $3 million a month in spousal support, retroactive from November 2006.
Keanu has always maintained he has never met the woman.
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